Baltimore, Chambliss, and words: Letters

Some left-wing liberal loony made the observation not too long ago that all cops need to be disarmed.

If anyone needs proof of the lunacy of that statement, they need look no further than Baltimore.

Once my favorite city in the country, it appears to have descended into utter chaos. It seems to me that the only way the Baltimore City Police Department can possibly regain respect is from the resignations of both Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — who ordered the police to stand down in the face of riots — and Commissioner Anthony Batts, who went along with her rather than resist such an idiotic order.

I wonder how Nancy Pelosi — that stalwart of liberalism and the daughter of Thomas D'Alesandro, a former U.S. congressman and a former mayor of Baltimore for 12 years — feels about her hometown now.

Richard H. Gleick Maitland

Criminal charges more precise terms

Words have meaning. "Not guilty" means that the accused did not do the act charged by the government; at least that is the plain meaning of the two words. In the cases of white police officers acquitted of killing black men or boys, those two words have led to violence in the streets.

It is time to use the legal terminology used in Scotland. "Guilty" means that the trier of fact has determined that — beyond a reasonable doubt — the accused committed the act charged. "Not proven" means that the trier of fact is not convinced that the accused is innocent, however guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Not guilty" means that the trier of fact is certain that the accused did not commit the act charged.

Alan S. Lunin Oviedo

Huzzahs extended to flag-burning prof

Mark Dean's Thursday letter is yet another example of public bullying and bombast ("Confederate-flag burning").

Violently reducing [Rollins College Professor] Julian Chambliss' actions within an art project to the single decontextualized statement on the basis of which his argument rests demonstrates a blazon cultural illiteracy.

The event in question was a public art project. This project simply showed that the very meaning of the Confederate flag is widely contested in the public domain.

To draw attention to these conflicting, and in some instances, incommensurable interpretations of that overdetermined symbol is seminal for the very life of a pluralistic, democratic society. Indeed, actions like Chambliss' actually prevent democracy from collapsing into a singular fascistic space of meaning.

Perhaps the most intractable assault on democracy from within are citizens like Dean who appeal to bullying tactics in order to sanitize and censor such actions. That's the logic of fascistic thinking.

We should applaud Chambliss for his actions that remind us we are Americans.

Creston David The Global Center for Advanced Studies

Robinson wrong, Krauthammer right

As it seems in every Sunday Orlando Sentinel Opinion section, Eugene Robinson gets it exactly wrong, and Charles Krauthammer gets it exactly right.

In this past Sunday's Sentinel, Robinson — in citing the recent fall of Ramadi at the hands of ISIS — questions the wisdom of helping the Iraqis when they don't seem willing to help themselves. The piece of the story that Robinson so conveniently fails to mention was President Obama's absolute blunder of pulling all troops out of Iraq instead of leaving a residual force of 10,000 to 15,000 troops, as was the advice of his military advisers.

Regardless of how Obama felt about our presence in Iraq, this politically driven decision has caused the region to descend into total chaos, and has directly led to the rise of ISIS. Luckily, Krauthammer was there to set the record straight. Robinson's column is emblematic of the great pains the liberal mainstream media take to protect Obama around every turn — even in the face of such ideological decision-making that has spawned truly disastrous results.

In his column, "Time for Johnny to come marching home from Iraq," Robinson writes, "If Iraqis won't fight for their nation's survival, why on earth should we?" He's right: we've sacrificed the lives of 4,500 Americans troops, and spent more than a trillion dollars establishing a democratically elected government in Iraq. The first leader elected, however, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, treated it as a private club for the Shiite Muslims, leaving the Sunnis and the Kurds on their own.

We've spent billions training and equipping their army. When faced by a smaller number of ISIS insurgents in the battle for Ramadi, however, they turned tail and ran, abandoning their U.S.-provided tanks, trucks and Humvees to the insurgents. How can anyone justify the sacrifice of a single additional American life to defend such a country?

Krauthammer accuses President Obama of abandoning Iraq in 2011 when he withdrew the last American combat troops.

The truth is that then-Prime Minister Maliki wanted the Americans out, refusing to sign a status-of-forces agreement to keep a residual force in place. This fact is ignored by John McCain and Lindsey Graham on the Sunday talk shows.

It's time to let the Gulf States' leaders who boycotted the president's Camp David summit lead the fight for peace in their own neighborhood.